Putin burnishes tough-guy credentials, leading hockey team to lopsided victory
Despite the crisis in Ukraine and the blame Russia is getting for causing it, President Vladimir Putin showed it was just business as usual in his world, reports CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata.
Putin took to the hockey rink Saturday in Sochi with a kind of confidence that only comes when you know you simply cannot lose.
He was predictably magnanimous in victory.
"We have no winners and no losers," Putin said. "It's a friendly game, it's a show."
That show was part of a long weekend of flexing muscle, military and otherwise, as Russia celebrated Victory Day. Rows of missiles and tanks rumbled through Moscow's Red Square and tight formations of jet fighters roared overhead.
Before, Putin set off to see his newest acquisition, Crimea, where he stoked national pride by declaring it was now part of the Motherland.
Gone are the days of Boris Yeltsin's hard-drinking over-enthusiasm.
Putin's grandstanding in Sochi was just a reminder of a quickly forgotten victory: his $50 billion gamble on the Winter Olympics that paid off.
Despite international criticism over Ukraine, Putin's approval ratings at home hit 80 percent in a March survey, though that may have changed recently as sanctions begin to take their toll on the economy.